Video: Electrical System Test for Rocket Prototype

We managed to snap this is a brief video last week while doing some testing of the electronics for our bi-propellant liquid rocket motor prototype.
The electronics are now fully operational and from now our efforts will focus on final integration of the plumbing and the thrust measurement system.

Austrian Space Forum Visit

On Thursday 27th October 2011 the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) visited the White Label Space headquarters in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. This video shows an informal presentation by White Label Space Chairman, Andrew Barton. He provides some information about the location of the headquarters, as well as a general status report of the GLXP team and its plans for the coming period. The OeWF is a partner of White Label Space, and the two organizations cooperate for field tests.

Fly Me Too The Moon

This video was taken at the jazz event produced by White Label Space Japan, where musicians played space related standard jazz numbers and WLS-J talked about our GLXP project.

In this video, Fly me to the Moon was played since this song is the first played song on the moon.

Rover Challenge Shibuya

Yumi Inaba from White Label Space Japan office presents this short video on the Rover Challenge event recently held at Shibuya in Tokyo.

Shibuya Rover Challenge: Day 1 Report

Report by Yumi Inaba from White Label Space Japan;

On Sep 1st WLS visited the Hachirabo Science Center for Children and met ten eager and curious kids for Day 1 of the Rover Challenge - Shibuya. The children at this Rover Challenge event were a bit older than those at the previous event held in Sendai.

We all had a lot of fun and learned about some space science and engineering. All the kids got excited and curious about what the rover can do and which part of the moon the rover is going to land. As soon as they came into the classroom they immediately found the prototype rover and crowded around it.

At the beginning of class WLS members answered questions from the kids and explained the challenge of the GLXP. After learning the challenges in going to the moon, the kids get to build their own kit rover. Some parts were a bit difficult, especially the gearbox, but everyone finished building their own rover. Most of them did not require any help.

The kids really liked their kit and could not stop playing even when the class came to an end. We hope they enjoyed playing with it at home as they took it home and that they look forward to the following class on the 8th.

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Testing of Propellant Flow Actuators

After some unavoidable delays things are back on track with the development of the bi-propellant rocket motor that will power the White Label Space GLXP moon lander. 

Here are some photos from last week's bench testing of the actuators that will be used to control the propellant flows during the static test.

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Moon Rover Challenge Comes to Shibuya

The next White Label Space Rover Challenge will take place tomorrow and next Saturday in the vibrant and chic Shibuya district of Tokyo, and will be broadcast live on Ustream and Twitter.

The aim of the Rover Challenge event is to motivate and inspire the next generation of space explorers through hands-on science and engineering activities. The Rover Challenge includes exciting activities that demonstrate to the audience the challenges of driving the White Label Space rover over the Moon's rough surface.

Participating in the event will be local elementary school children from grades four to six.

This event is the next in the series that started with the previous Rover Challenge held in Sendai this August.

Dates
 Day1: Sep 1st, Sat 14:00-17:00 (Japan Local Time)
 Day2: Sep 8th, Sat 14:00-17:00 (Japan Local Time)

Venue: Hachirabo Children's Science Center, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Contents
 Day1: Building a kit rover
 Day2: Driving the White Label Space rover

Broadcasting
 Ustream: http://ustre.am/NVSb
 Twitter: @wlsjapan

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Descent Trajectory Discussion

These photos are from the trajectory analysis presentation by Bart Hertog currently underway at the White Label Space HQ.

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Tethered Flight Test 1

A short duration hovering test hop was conducted.

Objectives for the test were:

1.  Test the ground, flight command and data logging systems. 
2.  Demonstrate that the vehicle has sufficient thrust to actually liftoff. 
3.  Record orientation data to see how the IMU coped with the flight

All objectives were successfully achieved.

The photo below shows the vehicle at the point of lift off. Video will be posted shortly.

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Any Day Now

This photo shows the lander prototype suspended from its support frame. Just a few minor steps are needed before its first hovering test! 

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Inspiring the Children of Sendai

Sendai and more broadly the Tohoku region of Japan, is recovering from the earthquake, and White Label Space wishes to present a positive vision of the future to the children growing up in that challenging environment. The rover development of White Label Space is being led by 
Kazuya Yoshida who has a deep relationship with the Sendai region of Japan through his position as professor of aerospace engineering at Tohoku University. 

Recently Sendai National College held an exciting education event for local school children with the assistance of White Label Space. The event called "Rover Challenge" aimed to teach some science and engineering through an interesting and exciting hands-on experience.

To begin the educational event, Mr. Hakamada, CEO of White Label Space Japan, described the exploration activities of White Label Space and in particular the lunar rover being developed in Japan. The children listened curiously, before they got the chance to drive the WLS rover in a simulated obstacle course on the Moon's surface. This was very popular amongst the school students. The supervisors whispered secretly to the WLS members that they also wanted to try the game later on.

After the game, each of the children got to make their own kit rover with a simplified design that still kept the main driving functions, deepening their understanding of the challenges of rover design. Supporting the children for the kit assembly were members of the local Robot Contest club that previously won the Tohoku district tournament and currently aims to win the national championship. During the assembly of the kit rovers, no conversation could be heard.

The WLS members were concerned that the kit construction would take too long but most of the children finished making their kits in time and started to play with it in their own ways.

Hopefully some of the children will go on to become space engineers in the future. Thanks very much to the college students and the teachers who helped us!

This event was covered by the largest local news paper, Kahoku Shimpo.

 If you are interested in the Rover Challenge, please contact White Label Space Japan.

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First Hovering Test Soon

Our prototype hovering rocket vehicle is almost ready and the first tethered test could take place any day now.

Note that the vehicle doesn't have any legs yet since it will be fully suspended by tethers for the complete duration of the test.

This prototype vehicle uses pulse modulated monopropellant thrusters.

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Wanted: Spacecraft AIT Engineers

Do you have 1 to 2 years experience working on real spacecraft hardware in a commercial/institutional (but non-academic) environment? 

We are currently looking for spacecraft AIT engineers to work in the Netherlands supporting structural, thermal and functional tests.

European nationality or work permission preferred. Relocation support available. 

Please send CV to: careers@whitelabelspace.com

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Girls And Rocket

We had some special visitors recently during the integration of our rocket motor prototype.

Without any previous knowledge of the topic, the girl on the left proposed sending a flower to the moon, so we agreed to integrate that payload into our static test bench frame!

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Jeroen van Straten

Jeroen is an electrical engineer with experience in designing and building electronics for rockets and test benches.

Jeroen graduated for his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at Delft University of Technology this year. For the next few years, he will continue his education with a Master's degree in Embedded Systems.

Alongside his studies and White Label Space work, he is active within Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering, having worked on the electronics for the Dutch CanSat competition (see http://www.cansat.nl/) and Stratos rockets.

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Flying Soon at a Rocket Range Near You

Our first hovering rocket vehicle is starting to take shape. This photo shows some of the pieces positioned as they will be on the finished product.

The propulsion system will use three pulse-modulated thrusters running on monopropellant hydrogen peroxide. The project will give the White Label Space team valuable experience in designing and operating rocket vehicles, thus accumulating know-how that will later be used to develop our moon lander.

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Surveyor 1 Descent Simulation

Brush up on your GNC know-how and learn some interesting technical details about NASA's first spacecraft to soft land on the Moon!

This video presentation by White Label Space's GNC specialist, Bart Hertog, explains a simulation of the Surveyor 1 terminal descent based upon published NASA documents from the 1960s. Bart undertook this simulation as a validation exercise to prove that his method can give accurate results for the White Label Space lunar lander mission.

The results of the validation exercise were very good in terms of the propellant consumption and other important parameters of the landing stage. Some discrepancies were found for the braking motor but these can be traced to incomplete data sets, specifically the lack of an accurate thrust versus time curve for the main retro rocket motor.

WLS GLXP Team Summit Presentation May 2012

Andrew Barton and Takeshi Hakamada presented this update of White Label Space's progress at the GLXP team summit held in Washington, DC in May 2012.

Now Is The Time To Go Back To Space

Three space enthusiasts, inspired by the 50-year anniversary of John Glenn's orbit of the earth, launched a weather balloon with a looping video message to the entire world: "Now is the time for us to go back into space". Also check out their site for the behind scenes look at the production effort, which surprising seems to include the first (successful) marriage proposal filmed in near space and watched on the ground.

OpenSite presents Now Is The Time

We Have Ignition!

The White Label Space team is a step closer to having the necessary propulsion system for its GLXP moon lander. This photo shows a successful test of the torch igniter conducted last week.

The next step is to integrate the torch igniter with the rest of the rocket motor and to initiate the first firing test of the complete liquid bi-propellant system.

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